Learning to Quiet the Static: My Personal Battle With Anxiety | by Calm Within Her | Jul, 2025

For the longest time, my life had a soundtrack. It wasn’t music. It was a low, constant hum of static. A background noise of ‘what ifs’ that played on a loop. On the outside, I was fine. I went to work, met friends, and smiled for photos. But on the inside, my mind was a storm.

Anxiety wasn’t a big, dramatic event. It was the thousand tiny paper cuts of everyday life. A pending email would feel like a final exam. A friend not replying instantly would feel like a personal rejection. My mind would snag on the smallest possibility of things going wrong and unravel it into a full-blown catastrophe.

It was exhausting. Living with anxiety felt like I was constantly holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. My chest would feel tight, my heart would forget its normal rhythm, and simple decisions like what to eat for dinner would feel impossibly heavy. It was like seeing the world through a blurry, shaky filter, where every potential threat was in sharp focus and all the good stuff was out of sight.

The turning point wasn’t a lightning bolt of clarity. It was a quiet moment of exhaustion. I was just so tired. Tired of the noise, tired of the fear, tired of my own mind being a place I wanted to escape from.

So I started small. So small it almost felt silly.

It started with a deep breath. A conscious, deliberate breath when I felt the panic rising. Then it became a short walk, just to feel the ground under my feet. It was admitting to a friend, in a quiet voice, “I’m not okay today.” The most powerful thing was learning that a thought is just a thought. It’s a cloud passing in the sky. I didn’t have to board every single one that flew by. I could just watch it go.

The journey isn’t over. I don’t think it ever will be. The static isn’t completely gone, but some days it’s barely a whisper. I’ve learned that anxiety is a part of my story, but it doesn’t get to be the narrator anymore. I am.

There are still shaky days, but now I have tools. I have words. I have the knowledge that the feeling will pass. The volume of the static doesn’t control me anymore. I’ve learned how to reach for the dial and turn it down.

If you’re reading this and the static feels too loud today, just know you’re not alone. And the quiet will come again.